Not popular but usable now they allow any kind of application and not just "modern apps". Main benefit that applications update automatically but even though I do install apps via the store I don't ever remember finding apps through it. Maybe discoverability is just bad.

Last time I checked the MS store it was mainly bikini wallpapers. Not kidding ...

Good enough.

Bikini wallpapers?! Oh my god, that's disgusting! Where?

They seem gone when I check now. I could swear, that when I installed WSL 2 years ago on my office computer, there was a ridiculous bikini wallpaper problem in the MS store. For some reason they push the store by forcing WSL installs via it ...

You can install WSL distros through the command line with:

  wsl --install -d <Distribution Name>

It's integrated with winget, but that hasn't caught on much either.